François Quesnel

Portrait of Henri III of France, ca. 1582-86 attributed to Quesnel (Musée du Louvre)

François Quesnel (ca. 1543 – 1619) was a French painter of Scottish extraction.

The son of the French painter Pierre Quesnel and his Scottish wife Madeleine Digby, born in Edinburgh while his father worked for Mary of Guise, Quesnel found patronage at the French court of Catherine de Medici and her son, Henri III (illustration). He married Charlotte Richandeau, with whom he had four children. A widower, he remarried in 1584 Marguerite Le Masson, who gave him ten more children, among whom were Nicolas and Augustin, painters, and Jacques, bookseller.

Portrait, possibly of Catherine-Charlotte de la Trémoille, ca 1589, attributed to Quesnel

In Paris he worked as a decorator and a designer of cartoons for tapestry, but it is as a portrait painter, both in oils and in delicately tinted pencil or red and black chalk he is chiefly remembered. Some portraits were engraved by Thomas de Leu and Michel Lasne, and in 1609 he drew a map of Paris for engraving by Pierre Vallet. He died in Paris.

External links and images

• Several portrait drawings, some identified sitters, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
• Engraving of François Quesnel by Pierre Brebiette, Joconde database, with motto 'Quo pedibus Ferri non queo mente Feror.'
• Portrait of a Noblewoman (attributed), Detroit Institute of Arts
• Portrait of a Bearded Man (attributed), Cleveland Museum of Art
• Portrait of a Bearded Man (attributed, Royal Collection
• Portrait of a Nobleman, 1589 (attributed), Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina
• Biography of Quesnel (in French)